A Project of The Center for Climate and Security

Why do militaries care about climate change?

Militaries are concerned about climate change because it is their job to address all credible threats to their respective nation’s security. These threats come in forms both direct and indirect, including direct threats to military installations from sea level rise and extreme droughts, and indirect threats through the exacerbation of instability in critical regions. Climate change presents risks to three elements of military effectiveness: readiness, operations and strategy.

Readiness: Readiness refers to the ability of a military to carry out operations in a timely manner. This involves having a stable and secure military infrastructure, including bases, supplies and logistics, in order to carry out missions. Climate change effects such as sea level rise have the ability to compromise coastal military installations that are critical for such operations. Other extreme weather events, such as droughts and flooding, can also put stresses on critical military infrastructure.

Operations: Climate change effects impact military operations, whether they be war-fighting operations or humanitarian missions. For example, climate change can place significant burdens on the supply chains and logistical capacity of armed forces engaged in “theater.” Extreme drought or flooding in areas where militaries are engaged in warfighting, for example, can compromise water supply lines, and thus threaten military personnel directly. Extreme drying can also increase the likelihood of non-state actors using the seizure of water resources as leverage against populations and adversaries. An increase in the frequency and intensity of natural disasters may also put strains on the capacity of armed forces to deliver humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR).

Strategy: Climate change can impact military strategy through increasing the possibility of destabilizing conditions in strategically-significant regions of the world. In the Arctic, a melting ice cap, coupled with increasing tensions between Russia and other Arctic nations, could increase the likelihood of conflict. In the Middle East and North Africa, climate change effects on water security may increase the probability of instability in the future. In Central Asia, increases in glacial melt and flooding, coupled with existing security dynamics (such as terrorism and nuclear materials proliferation), can create a volatile mix. In the broader Asia-Pacific region, rainfall variability will interact with a growing urban and coastal population, as well as an increasing demand for energy, to present enormous challenges to security in this increasingly important part of the world. Migrating fish stocks in the South China Sea may create pressures on the fishing industry to move into contested water, leading to increased tensions between China, its neighbors and the United States. These risks can increase the likelihood of militaries being called on to resolve conflicts, or provide post-conflict assistance. All of these dynamics will put stresses and strains on military strategies.